My Mother's Treasure
by HoodedSpellcaster
Summary: The Grey Lady rarely speaks but her mind is never silent.


For Quidditch League Fanfiction Challenge – Round 7: Time for the Horcrux Hunt!

Position:Chaser 3 for Montrose Magpies

Prompts: 8: POV; first person present, 12: colour; magenta, 14: word; critters

* * *

_Quiet critters,_

_Quiet critters,_

_Coming out, coming out_

_They'll get scared if you talk_

_so please focus on your work_

_Quiet critters, quiet critters…_

* * *

Another year has passed. New first years, yes, look around. This will be your home for the next seven years. The Ravenclaw Tower, every corner of it, every wall, every painting – it will all be yours. It all was mine, too, but that was long ago. Don't look at me like that, child, look at _her_.

Look at the statue and who do you see?

I see that smile on your lips. You know the answer. Now say _it_.

"_Rowena Ravenclaw_."

Familiar with the name, aren't you? How couldn't you be? Every witch and warlock on the better side of the Magical Europe knows her. One of the four Founders of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

That tiara she's wearing. Did it spark your attention? That's the Lost Diadem of Ravenclaw. You've probably heard of that as well.

Do you know about it? Do you know what happened to it? No, I didn't think so.

Only one will ever know.

And that one will be me.

* * *

Rowena Ravenclaw from the glens of Scotland was a very intelligent woman, truly beautiful and yet slightly intimidating. Those things can't be denied. She had everything a witch could ever ask for. Looks, wit, charm. But she didn't care about those things.

Rowena Ravenclaw was _my mother_, and my mother cared about this very special little tiara of hers.

A _diadem_, that's what she called it. It was beautiful and magical, such like its owner.

She had asked goblins to make it years before my birth. It was pure silver, a blue sapphire shaped like an oval latched on it. What made it special wasn't the carved text "_Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure_" in a beautiful cursive upon its surface but the _enchantment_ my mother had placed upon it.

She had enchanted the diadem, putting a complicated charm on the silvery object to make it increase its wearer's intelligence.

She never let anyone else to touch it, not to mention, _wear_ it. She kept her diadem of everyone's reach. It was her treasure.

Then there was me.

It was a lot of pressure. After all, I was taught by my mother and of course people were expecting a lot from the daughter of Rowena Ravenclaw. Why wouldn't they be? She was the wisest of them all. I wanted to be just like her.

But I was just Helena. And they didn't find my effort enough.

It was always Rowena this and Rowena that and oh Helena why can't you be more like your mother Rowena?

I began to envy my mother and how she gained all the attention. And it didn't take long until I realized I could never be enough. Not like this. To be acknowledged I needed to be something more than my mother. More important, more envied, more intelligent. To be better than her.

At first I just played with the thought.

Played with it at the nights when I couldn't sleep.

Cherished it as I couldn't leave it alone and forget.

It kept me going forward, kept me making plans. Making plans of becoming the greatest, the most intelligent witch Hogwarts had ever seen. More intelligent than the precious Rowena Ravenclaw.

So one night when I couldn't sleep as the thoughts of surpassing my mother plagued me, I get up from my bed and descended from the Ravenclaw Tower to my mother's personal quarters. I watched my steps, I made no noise. I approached the serene, sleeping form of my mother and then…

Then I just took it.

I stole my mother's diadem from her head and run.

Out the castle, out the grounds, my knuckles turning white as I clenched my wand and the diadem in hands. And then I was gone. No more Hogwarts, no more anyone to tell me I wasn't good enough.

No more being only second rate.

I was free to change my fate.

* * *

After some time, I found myself from Albania, from the land of my father.

The life there was simple. No one knew me as Rowena Ravenclaw's daughter; I had no bounds, no one to hold me back. I wasn't caged in my mother's reputation. I settled down in a small village in the middle of nowhere where the sunset coloured the sky in the shades of red – crimson, scarlet, and magenta. So beautiful. The place had nothing to do with my past. Perhaps that was part of the reason why I was drawn to that place at the time being. I gained appreciation there. People loved me when I was just Helena.

But the time passed too quickly. Days turned into months, months into years. And suddenly, it didn't feel so good anymore.

During some days I felt overpowered by the guilt of stealing the diadem.

I wanted to return it. I truly wanted. I was planning going back to Hogwarts. But every time I wore the diadem, it told me to stay. It whispered things to me.

_Why would you return to your old life of being never enough?_

_What would they see other than your treacherous betrayal? No._

_Stay here where you're loved for who you are._

_You're intelligent, beautiful. They can see it, can't they?_

_Unlike your mother..._

* * *

But then that cursed man appeared into my village. I was angered in seconds when I noticed him and I knew exactly who was behind his sudden appearing.

_Rowena Ravenclaw._

Why had she sent him? Because she knew he wouldn't give up? Was that diadem really so important to her?

I was so confused but yet, I was determined about one thing:

I wasn't going to return it.

The diadem was _mine_!

So I left the village, went hiding into the woods. I should have known the Baron would find me anytime soon after all. He had seen me in the inn, our eyes had met for a moment, and I had noticed his feelings hadn't changed. Neither had mine.

"Helena."

I twitched at his tone, the way he called my name. I hid the diadem in a hollow tree and faced him. He was truly older than I remembered. He spoke to me softly, as always, asked me to return with him. I couldn't stand listening to him. I refused to return with him back to Scotland and back to Hogwarts where everything that would be waiting for me would be my mother's wrath and living in her shadow. I didn't want to get back to life like that.

The Baron was very persistent.

I refused him once.

I refused him twice.

Third time never came.

I should have remembered that some things never change. The Baron was indeed a very quick-tempered man. I should have remembered he had never accepted my refusals well. But I had never seen this would happen.

There was horrible pain in my chest and my eyes clenched shut. He had stabbed me. No magic, curses, spells. Just a knife and brute force.

I collapsed. I was bleeding. I was _dying_.

Wasting away.

I didn't want to die. There was still so much to accomplish. The diadem. I needed to get the diadem. I needed to…

I couldn't move anymore. I had no power over my body but I was still here, refusing to leave this world just like I had refused going back with the Baron.

And who could have known that was one of my most horrible mistakes.

* * *

I don't know what made me want to return to Hogwarts after... You know. Dying. Perhaps I had all along wanted to come back. I had just been too afraid.

I guess I had been just afraid that my mother would put the diadem ahead of me. That was it, the thing I had been afraid all along. It wasn't afraid that I wouldn't be enough like my mother, or that I wouldn't be intelligent, or creative.

I wasn't afraid of losing the diadem.

_I was afraid of losing to the diadem_.

I understood that then.

And it was already too late.

My mother was no more. I heard she had fallen fatally ill after I had disappeared and she had died few weeks before my return.

"Your mother wanted nothing more than see you. Didn't the Baron tell you that?"

No, he didn't. Or perhaps he did. And I just didn't listen to him.

"She never told us why you left."

I stared at Godric Gryffindor, the only of the Four Founders who was there welcome me back. My mother… she hadn't told them about my betrayal? She hadn't told them I had taken her diadem. She hadn't… My spirit shattered because of that simple realization.

My mother had fell sick not because the diadem had disappeared but because I had.

My mother's treasure had been me all along.

And now my mother was dead because of me.

Because of me and my stupid disobedience and envy and fear.

I made a decision. There was no way I was ever going to tell anyone where I had left that cursed diadem that had broke the relationship between me and my mother.

It never did enhance its wearer's wisdom. It didn't make one intelligent. It didn't make anyone smarter. It would only bring destruction because no human being is capable to control the responsibility it brings.

It's not a treasure of any kind.

After all, life and love are.

And I had lost both.

But the sunsets were still beautiful.

_Crimson, scarlet, and magenta._


End file.
